


Meaning

by WrenAndPoppy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Existential Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Iron Bull, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrenAndPoppy/pseuds/WrenAndPoppy
Summary: Inquisitor Adaar wakes up from a nightmare about the Fade and her own past.  Iron Bull comforts her.Warnings: Fade spiders being real assholes.





	

The sick dripping taint of the Fade followed Adaar even after she stepped out of its hungry grasp.  Spiders and twisted laughter choked her dreams.

In her dreams, her party fell around her.  In her dreams, the spiders swarmed over her, knocking her to the ground and pinning her in place with stinging barbs.  She could hear the screams of her friends over the low laughter of the demon who had trapped them there.

 **“Tal-Vashoth,”** the spider said.  A low voice dripped from its wet maw, a voice that Adaar recognized.

Adaar snarled, hacking desperately at the massive beast.  Her knives  wouldn’t drive through its thick, leathery exoskeleton.

 **“You are nothing,”** the spider said.  Fleshy fangs gnashed above her as a cold voice continued to spill out.   **“You don’t exist.  You have chosen not to be.”**

“Shut up!” she screamed.  The words seemed to choke her, catching in her throat, never as loud as she needed them to be.  The spider’s sharp legs dug into her, scraping over her body, opening wounds as she slashed frantically.

**“Insignificant mindless beast, staggering through the world without purpose.  Lower than waste.  Meaningless.”**

“Stop!”

**“Why do you continue drawing breath?  What is your grander purpose?”**

“I’m helping, people, I’m helping –”

**“Are you?  Or do you merely stave off their suffering for another day, another month?  The poor family will still be poor.  The mage who resisted temptation will feel it again.  The world still bleeds, and you simply wipe up the blood.”**

Adaar sobbed, her hands shaking on her knives she lay uselessly in the dust.  “I’m not… please, I’m trying so hard…”

In the choking airless swamp of the Fade, the spider shimmered.  Adaar felt hands pinning her arms to the floor in place of barbed legs.  The face that loomed over her was slathered with red warpaint, crested with horns and wearing a disgusted sneer.

 **“Worthless,”** he bit out.

Adaar shook her head weakly.  She couldn’t find words.

 **“Filthy.  Your existence is an insult.”** His hand moved from her wrist to her throat, locking in place.  She couldn’t breathe.   **“Nothing you have ever done has mattered.  The only good you could do now is to _die.”_**

Adaar bolted upright with a gasp, her hands shaking where they grabbed her bedsheets.  The dark, quiet peace of her room in Skyhold coalesced around her as the dream faded.  Adaar pressed a shaking hand over her mouth, trying to hold back sobs and catch her breath all at the same time.

She could still hear his voice.

The mattress shifted as Iron Bull rolled over in bed and sat up beside her.  Adaar hugged her knees to her chest, breathing hard, staring into the night sky through the tall windows in her chamber.  She felt powerful arms wrap around her as gently as a blanket, pulling her against the reassuringly solid warmth of Iron Bull.

“Nightmares, kadan?” he asked softly.

Adaar swallowed.  She nodded, pressing back against his body.  “ … F-from the Fade.  I _hate_ spiders, Bull.  We should kill all of them.  I mean _all_ of them.  No more spiders in Thedas.”

Bull chuckled softly.  He groped in the darkness until he found her hand, wrapping it in his own.  “And what did these spiders in your dreams have to say?”

“A lot, oddly enough,” Adaar choked out.  She bit her lip hard.  She was still trembling from the dream, her heart racing.  “They told me I was nothing.  That I didn’t matter.”

Bull snorted.  “Tough words coming from a gross demon that you’ve already killed.”

Adaar shook her head, still shaking.  She squeezed Bull’s hand in her own.  “It – it wasn’t just the demon.”

“Hm?”

“Before I was the Inquisitor, before all this… you know what I was, right?”

Iron Bull’s face softened.  He cupped her cheek, pulling her close until their foreheads bumped.

“I know exactly who you were,” he murmured.  “And it’s who you are right now.”

Adaar swallowed.  She let her eyes slide closed.  The shadows were less frightening with Bull’s breath gusting gently against her lips.  “… My family encountered followers of the Qun once,” she murmured.  “They said… things to me.  I was only a child.  I believed it.”

“Things like ‘you don’t matter?’”

Adaar just nodded.

Bull snorted.  He pressed a kiss to her forehead.  “I hope you know what bullshit that is,” he murmured.

Adaar shuddered.  “Is it?  The only reason I’m the Inquisitor is because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I wasn’t chosen, I’m not part of some plan, I’m just stumbling through every step of every day–”

Bull silenced her with a kiss.  Adaar softened into it.  When their lips parted, her breath felt more steady.

“That’s not why you’re someone,” Bull murmured.  He brushed his hand over her cheek, looking at her with such reverence that it broke her heart.  “Not the power or the armies or that big fancy chair under your ass.”  He pressed a thick finger against her chest.  “It’s something you’ve got right here.”

Adaar managed a weak smile.  “ … My breasts?”

“Heh.”  Bull chuckled.  “Those are good too, but you know what I mean.”  He pulled her close and pressed another soft kiss to her forehead.  “You give _me_ meaning,” he whispered.  “Is that enough?”

A startled sob escaped through Adaar’s smile.  She pulled Bull close, burying her face in his neck.  “… Yes,” she breathed back.  “Yes.  That’s enough.”


End file.
